How to get shot by the People’s Liberation Army of China

on Nov 04 in General by Dan

Amy has developed a strong like for the TV program Little Einsteins; and so, despite my previous protestations, it has become a semi regular feature in the bedtime routine. In one episode the gang of irritating twerps child prodigies visit China. They have to find a number of kites, or some such rubbish, I rarely pay too much attention.

The episode does remind me of our own trip to China however. For some reason it feels much more than a year ago that we went, perhaps because a fair few things have happened between then and now. But this time last year we were packing our bags ready to go.

If you ask most of my family what their favourite memory of the trip was I’m sure they’d say either the Great Wall or the Terracotta Warriors. For me though it was definitely the Forbidden City. The sheer magnificence and scale of the former imperial palace was awe inspiring enough; but add to that ruminations about a great (admittedly decadent) dynasty brought low and the fact I had just started to really miss Amy by that point, and you will see that the time was ripe for a good dose of contemplative maudlinity. I remember the whole affair being very emotional and despite much of the place being over run by tourists I had a great sense of solitude.

A couple of hours beforehand was another matter however. We were in Tienanmen Square, a location with obvious political sub-currents. Our tour guide had warned us before we got off the coach that this was a sensitive area. He told us that we probably knew more of what happened there in the massacre of 1989 than he did, but the Square was still very much a sight of political activism and it was wise to tread carefully. Wounds were still raw, and martyrs had been setting fire to themselves and burning to death as recently as a couple of years ago.

There is an incredibly strong red army presence in Tienanmen Square, and we were told that if we saw any arrests or disturbances we should not attempt to film or photograph them as our cameras would be confiscated and we could possibly face arrest. There is an undercurrent of menace to the area and needless to say there was a slightly subdued air to our tour party as we entered there. Subdued that is apart from a particularly obnoxious woman from Birmingham who both my brother and I had already decided had our vote for the person we would most like to sleep in and miss the coach award.

This shining example of British good manners and common sense spotted the large banners depicting Chairman Mao and proclaimed in an extremely loud voice:

“I just don’t understand it! Why do they have pictures of Chairman Mao all over the place? Don’t they know he was a communist and communism is just wrong?!”

Each and every member of the tour group rose up as if one and implored the stupid cow to keep her mouth shut. My brother even felt the compulsion to approach the tour guide and apologise on behalf of our entire nation, and if you knew how much he generally shuns any kind of human contact you would understand how significant that was.

Still, we weren’t shot or arrested so that’s the main thing I suppose. As an added bonus we were delighted to observe that the woman and her husband were stopped and searched by customs officials on the way out of the country too, so perhaps there is something to this karma thing after all.

Related posts:

1. Money, it’s a gas.
2. Who’s the new leader of China
3. Letter from America
4. Another chance to see… Day Three
5. …and another thing

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